How can you order units to stand still when they see enemies?

[Hobel]

Tittel says it all, if I give a unit an order in one direction it sees a unit there the vehicle doesn't stop but drives stupidly to its death.

 

I've tried a few things now but nothing works

[Apocalypse 31]

2 hours ago, Hobel said:

Tittel says it all, if I give a unit an order in one direction it sees a unit there the vehicle doesn't stop but drives stupidly to its death.

 

I've tried a few things now but nothing works

The Engage tactic will have you units stop to engage. 

 

It can get weird sometimes. I tend to see entire formations halted by friendly AI that can't seem to hit their targets, or friendly AI that will spend their entire ammo rack the second they see the antenna top of an enemy vehicle. Kind of frustrating.

 

The Scout tactic will also halt your vehicles when they make contact.

[Ssnake]

STAY is the word you're looking for.

 

Also, positioning the LOS bubble correctly...

 

... and adequate fire control oders will help immensely to prevent the klind of disasters you were mentioning.

 

However, nothing can replace reading (and understanding) Chapter 8 in the user's manual.

[oakdesign]

6 hours ago, Ssnake said:

STAY is the word you're looking for.

 

Also, positioning the LOS bubble correctly...

... and adequate fire control oders will help immensely to prevent the klind of disasters you were mentioning.

 

However, nothing can replace reading (and understanding) Chapter 8 in the user's manual.

But isn't the question NOT about waypoint  battleposition behaviour but on behaviour while still on route.

But as Apocalypse stated as per doc Engage Rout tactic
 

Quote

If enemy within range, stop to find hull-down postions facing enemy. The maximum range is determined by the value of the fire-contol property and ammo range

I'm personally stil quite ned to SB and try to get myself scenario design therefore making myself lots of micro scenarios in order to get a feel for the tactical behavior of the AI while using different commands and conditions. Having been a Instructor on the AGPT Simulator for quite a few years I expect that to become a tedious process 

Edited October 30, 2021 by oakdesign

[Ssnake]

The way I understood the original question was that units might unexpectedly drive towards sudden enemy (presumably in an attempt to find a hull-down position). This can be broken into different aspects,

 

User expectation

...that's why knowledge of standard behaviors is essential, hence my recommendation to read Chapter 8

 

Placement of units

.../battlepositions and the selection of the initial reference point for hull-down positions in the absence of enemy (hence why I posted the video)

 

Understanding the (robotic) behavior

...and how seeking hull-down positions will result in vehicle movement (it's touched both in Chapter 8 and the video)

 

The user's manual is quite extensive, it's available both in German and in English. Maybe not everything in it needs to be studied, but if you have time for only a single chapter, it'd be no. 8. Both UI and AI routines have grown in complexity over the last two decades in an attempt to allow the user more fine control over everything that happens in Steel Beasts. But as a consequence, there's now also more to learn, and the intuitiveness of the design has probably decreased, which results in more frustration. Anyway, the solution for all that is a better understanding of the inner workings of Steel Beasts, and as much as we try to cover topics in tutorial videos, video production requires a lot more time and effort than writing it down in a manual, so the manual will always contain more information than a learning video can convey (given an honest effort in both cases).

[Hobel]

So thank you for the answers.

"Engage was the answer.

 

However, it doesn't work for units carrying Milan/Javelin or other guided weapons, they still run into their dead.

hence the confusion. i tested it with these units first.

All other units remain standing and fend off threats.

 

Where do I download the manual? I haven't found anything yet.

I have already found it myself in the SB directory

Edited October 30, 2021 by Hobel

[Ssnake]

Infantry with crew served weapons, especially ATGMs, might be best controlled with Stay orders, too.

[oakdesign]

13 hours ago, Hobel said:

So thank you for the answers.

"Engage was the answer.

 

However, it doesn't work for units carrying Milan/Javelin or other guided weapons, they still run into their dead.

hence the confusion. i tested it with these units first.

All other units remain standing and fend off threats.

 

Where do I download the manual? I haven't found anything yet.

I have already found it myself in the SB directory

Made some progress with Marders in my test by setting the route action to Scout and a Dismount if under direct fire condition to get a more reasonable behaviour than to let them run into death

[stormrider_sp]

14 hours ago, Hobel said:

Where do I download the manual? I haven't found anything yet.

I have already found it myself in the SB directory

That's exactly the solution you need. The Manual.

[Hobel]

15 hours ago, Ssnake said:

Infantry with crew served weapons, especially ATGMs, might be best controlled with Stay orders, too.

But that is not the answer to my question.

When the units are on the move, they will not automatically build up their ATGM unless I give the direct command.

And I still haven't found a way to do that.

I haven't found anything in the instructions yet either.

7 hours ago, oakdesign said:

Made some progress with Marders in my test by setting the route action to Scout and a Dismount if under direct fire condition to get a more reasonable behaviour than to let them run into death

But they won't automatically "Dismount", or?

Edited October 31, 2021 by Hobel

[oakdesign]

They would automatically dismount and the APCwould even retreat back to a hull down position. But the issue is that the dismounted have tactics none set once dismounted and no way to change that as far as I can say, therefore they would not engage any enemy they are facing. 

 

As I personally currently get into how to best implement scripting into OPFOR I'm now more into do it in a more micromanaging way with very short legs for the APC/IFV and then conditional dismount and embark if for the infantry

Edited October 31, 2021 by oakdesign

[Hobel]

ah wait a minute you said "Dismount if"

 

But this option is not available in a running game.🤔

[oakdesign]

Currect only in planing phase or in mission editor.

[Hobel]

hm, too bad.

That is also important in the battle itself.

[Ssnake]

6 hours ago, Hobel said:

When the units are on the move, they will not automatically build up their ATGM unless I give the direct command.

Ah.

Okay, if you're in the 3D view, look into the direction of the enemy and simply hit E (to engage (IOW, to assume a fighting position, which in this context means to go prone and set up the weapon)).

Routes with Engage tactics should also result in such behavior for infantry. If they don't, we may be dealing with a bug here.

[Ssnake]

13 hours ago, oakdesign said:

Made some progress with Marders in my test by setting the route action to Scout and a Dismount if under direct fire condition to get a more reasonable behaviour than to let them run into death

6 hours ago, Hobel said:

But they won't automatically "Dismount", or?

Troops will automatically dismount if their vehicle becomes immobilized. Otherwise the logic is that you're better protected both by armor and the vehicle's velocity if you stay mounted. Dismounting is a tactical decision, and all such decisions are left to human operators as a design principle in Steel Beasts.

 

Typically it's best to let infantry dismount on waypoints rather than routes. Dismounting on routes leaves them with no route to follow, and no battleposition tactics, so it usually requires direct human intervention.

 

 

Mechanized infantry operations have a very high number of variables involved. As a professional soldier you have received years of training that might make certain actions come "natural" and "intuitive" to you (because you learned certain principles (also called military doctrine) and you were taught that "sometimes", "if the situation requires", you'd have to forget about textbook solutions). Computers have no intuition, they are insensitive to context. So, now that you have to program explicit orders as to when and where to dismount, it should become clear how much know-how there actually is in your subconscious. Which might also help you to appreciate that it's also not easy for us to make mech infantry react autonomously to any given variation of a moderately complex tactical situations.

Typically people tend to plot long uninterrupted routes of road-bound travel. It's very convenient to simply shift-click your route from one end of the map to the other. But you largely give up tactical control and flexibility that way. Ideally your movement to contact should be done in bounds of under 500m. Maybe, at times, you can afford a route of two kilometers length (where you're fairly confident that there will be no enemy presence). But if you make it a habit of plotting short routes, this also gives you opportunity to program alternative courses of action at every waypoint. Like, use a March route if no enemy is seen, but switch to off-road Engage or Assault routes when there is enemy. Is more work, but preserves your tactical flexibility.

 

Use Shift+Click to mark multiple waypoints to give them identical "dismount, if..." orders to save you some menial work. Same for alternate routes with "embark, if..." conditions. Copy routes and route chains and paste them to other waypoints and units. All this helps to reduce the clickfest of more complex unit behavior. Also, in the planning phase you can create route and battle position "primitives" that aren't connected to anything where you set certain conditions. You can then copy these during the execution phase and paste them where needed. Since you asked why you can't program conditions during the execution phase, it's pretty simple. If the scenario is so slow-paced that you have the time to think about the exact conditions, you also have the time to do it manually. If on the other hand you're overwhelmed by too many units requiring your attention, opening an "Embark if..." dialog in the thick of things will either make things worse by distracting you from more urgent matters, or you're very likely to make mistakes under time pressure.

Programming a mission script requires the higher level cognitive parts of your mind ("System II") which are also relatively slow to process information. In combat, "System I" reigns supreme - fast decisions, made without much effort, based on "gut feeling", "experience", often with far more information processed than you could easily mention if you tried to explain a certain decision afterwards; sometimes it's called a sixth (seventh) sense. It's absolutely hopeless to try and catch that with explicit, binary rules when and where to dismount. If we tried that, I'm convinced that it would frustrate you even more, just in a different way.

[Ssnake]

16 hours ago, Ssnake said:

Routes with Engage tactics should also result in such behavior for infantry. If they don't, we may be dealing with a bug here.

And indeed we are, #10149.

Thank you; without your help it might have taken us longer to notice that this behavior was broken.

 

15 hours ago, Ssnake said:

Troops will automatically dismount if their vehicle becomes immobilized.

...aaand while I'm making false statements - no, bug #6848 currently prevents that from happening.

[Hobel]

Thank you very much for all the replies.

But I have another question and I don't want to open a new thread.

When friendly units come under fire, they report it by speaking and sending a chat message.

Is this also possible for reconnoitred targets?

When enemy units show up on the F5 map, it means that friendly units have reconnoitred them, so it would be helpful if this could also be reported via talk radio.

[Ssnake]

Typically, there's a voice radio message like "Contact, PCs" and the message bar would include the coordinate.

Of course the reporting unit must have no radio damage, and must not be blind.